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Dessert

A French Rice Pudding, or Gateau De Riz

A custard-like rice pudding made with milk, cream, butter, sugar, lemon rind, eggs, and baked with bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A French Rice Pudding, or Gateau De Riz

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the rice base

  1. Swell the rice in milk or milk and cream in a pot until tender.

  2. Add butter, powdered sugar, salt, and lemon rind, and simmer until the rice is fully swollen.

  3. Remove from heat, let cool slightly, and stir in the beaten egg yolks gradually.

Prepare the pan

  1. Coat a small saucepan with clarified butter, then drain off excess butter.

  2. Sprinkle stale bread crumbs over the buttered pan, shaking off any excess.

Bake

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then gently fold them into the rice mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan without disturbing the bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour until browned and firm.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carolina rice
Swells in milk to form the soft, creamy body of the pudding.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to provide the liquid that gives the pudding its tender texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help set the pudding as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiffness, they lighten the mixture and help it rise in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds softness to the texture.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smooth, tender mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites whipped to stiff peaks trap air that lifts the pudding. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring vigorously deflates the foam and leaves a dense, flat result.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, rice, butter, sugar, bread, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, rice, butter, sugar, bread, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More rice pudding recipes

Baked 88Apple 84with Meringue 40Boiled 38French 30Lemon 29 See all 1,220 →

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